Cold Pond

Cold Pond FAA

Brrrr…

But it’s not frozen over. This is a normal part of the transition. Cold, warm, snow, warm again, fierce cold winds, gentle soft breezes.

The trees didn’t give up and fall over because it snowed after a few lovely warm days. OK, they turned blue with the cold, but they’ll get over it. It’s  just how things happen when you’re moving from one season to another. Yeah, it can be smooth and easy and gradual, but life’s more likely bumpy and lumpy. Like real mashed potatoes (not the flakes that come in a box!).

Two steps forward, one step back. Or three or four or five back. But eventually, the forward momentum can’t be stopped. It’s the nature of… well, nature.

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance because you’ll get to see the full resolution image in all its detail. Just go here

Advertisement

Last Fall This Spring and Always

Last Fall This Spring and Always FAA

Easy, give yourself a sec to get used to the perspective of this picture.

OK. Now, then:

Last falls’s brown leaves with this spring’s green shoots. And of course, the eternal stones. No, not the band!

Well, there you have it. The essence of the vast experience that is life on earth in one photo.

What, you were expecting more words? Well, you know… sometimes more is actually less. Shhhh…

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance! To see a full resolution image of this digital artwork in full detail please go here.

Red Earth Blue Sky

Red Earth Blue Sky FAA

Look at them — opposites that need each other. The hot red longs for the cool blue. The sky, welcoming the warmth, nourishes the earth. The Yin and the Yang. The male and the female.

But more.

The free flow of thought and ideas, not held down, floating soft and free, and the passionate yet solid, firm and grounding counterpoint.

Look at what happens when the trees, the link between the two, feather out into the sky and create something new in that roiling energy where they come together, that birth of purple which is neither yet both.

Like a synapse with dendrites tickling into a new thought, a new sensation, a creative leap.

Hey, you gotta let ‘em leap, you know.

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance! To see a full resolution image of this digital artwork in full detail please go here.

Spring Plowing Soon

Spring Plowing Soon SmallThe foreground stalks are what’s left of last year’s corn harvest. In a few weeks they’ll be plowed under and enrich the soil for the next harvest.

Seed.

Growth.

Harvest.

Repeat.

But it’s not quite as simple as a repeating cycle, just a circle going round and round, returning to the same place endlessly. It’s actually more like a spiral of life and growth that never does return to quite the same place as before. A farming cycle isn’t the same in 2016 as it was in 1916 or 1816.

So here’s the deal: a spiral seen from directly above looks like a plain two dimensional circle. But when seen from the side in three dimensions (a view those trapped in two dimensions can’t access), the evolving spiral can clearly be seen.

But — sometimes — it really can be seen by those of us on the spiral. Unless we’re just spinning our wheels.

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance! To see a full resolution image of this digital artwork in full detail or to purchase a high quality print for your home of workplace, either framed or unframed, please click here.

West View

West View FAA

It’s the last rays of the sun on one of the last days of winter, and the sky is beginning to light up the clouds with its magical evening glow. The ending of a day, of a season — it’s a time when nature can teach us some of its most profound lessons.

When a day, or a season is old and near its moment of transition when its light will be hidden for a while, that’s when the most spectacular, subtle and brilliant part of the day so often stuns us with its beauty.

But of course the light is never really gone because as the sun is setting for us, it’s rising to a new day somewhere else for someone else.

And not just days and seasons. Know what I mean, Jellybean?

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance! To see a full resolution image of this digital artwork in full detail or to purchase a high quality print for your home of workplace, either framed or unframed, please go here.

Red Streak

It’s the first days of spring, and in a few more weeks that red streak will turn yellow, then as summer digs in, it’ll be green and lush and home to many kinds of life.

For now though, it slashes straight through the still dormant scene like a pulsing artery bringing nourishment and life force through the seasons. It’s worth keeping that in mind as our world heads deeper into a season of darkness where hope seems to grow more dim with each day.

Even in the severest winter, there is a force which will not be extinguished, keeping life alive, nourishing the roots with love, ensuring a renaissance, and another inevitable springtime as the seasons will surely turn again.

Of course, this isn’t really about the weather. But then you knew that.

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance! To see a full resolution image of this digital artwork in full detail or to purchase a high quality print for your home of workplace, either framed or unframed, please go hereRed Streak Maple FAA.

Tangled

Tangled FAA SmallThere’s a light coat of snow outlining each branch, making visible the magnificent web of life that is a stand of trees. In another couple of months or so the branches will be nearly invisible, completely covered with an explosion of leaves soaking up sun, water, air, cleansing the atmosphere and lifting our spirits.

You know, there’s a saying: As Above, So Below. Meaning that the same pattern that governs great things governs the small as well. So does this look familiar? It’s the same pattern that forms our blood vessels, nervous systems, rivers and streams, supply chains for goods and commerce, the internet, the very movement of ideas and so much more.

What a gift the trees give us each winter, to lay bare the fundamental foundation that governs almost everything in our world. It’s great reminder that we’re built on the same set of laws that everything else is — not apart from, not better than, but very much part of one energetic Earthling family.

Yep, I said “Earthling.”

Oh, and it doesn’t hurt to look at this image fairly large. Otherwise, it just looks like…. a tangle.

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance! To see a full resolution image of this digital artwork in full detail or to purchase a high quality print for your home of workplace, either framed or unframed, please go here

Big Maple Stretching by the Road

Big Maple by the Road FAA Small

It’s late winter, and in the slower life rhythm of trees, it’s almost the dawn of spring. Now our maple friend is beginning to stretch and get ready for the new day.

She didn’t get this big and strong by being inflexible and refusing to bend or grow. Even in the dead of winter, when everything seems to have slowed down so much to have virtually stopped, her life cycle keeps moving ahead like clockwork, knowing just what to do and when to do it.

And so, her limbs strengthened by the winds of winter, in her own way she’s looking forward to a new season of growth and warm weather activities ahead. 

I guess just because you’re rooted in one place it doesn’t mean you have to miss out on any of the richness of life.

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance! To see a full resolution image of this digital artwork in full detail or to purchase a high quality print for your home of workplace, either framed or unframed, please go here.

Mister and Missus

Mr. & Mrs FAA Small

Nice young couple out for a brisk winter stroll, just waiting for enough ice on the pond to thaw so that they can have some fun swimming. Which it did the next day, and they did, dipping and shaking their heads and looking for all the world like they were having the best old time.

Having fun together is one of the many reasons for life, I think. Or just having fun, period. I wonder how far down the chain of life and consciousness you have to go before fun stops to have any meaning.

My suspicion is that the only thing that really changes is the definition of fun. The fun of a goose is different from the fun of a human, or the fun of a microbe, or a plant, or a planet or a galaxy. But the bottom line is it’s all fun, isn’t it?

Oh, lighten up!

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance! To see a full resolution image of this digital artwork in full detail or to purchase a high quality print for your home of workplace, either framed or unframed, please go here.

Sun Set the Woods on Fire

Sun Set the Woods on Fire FAA Small

But it’s not a fire of destruction.

It’s a fire of glory, of beauty, of passion. The passion of love for creation, for what is, for how it all, every bit of it, changes and pulses and lives and moves, vibrates, glows, sings and dances and so much more.

You can’t contain that kind of passion. It combusts spontaneously, sometimes when you least expect it.

Burn, baby, burn.

This image is from my gallery, Out Here in the Country — check it out when you get a chance! To see a full resolution image of this digital artwork in full detail or to purchase a high quality print for your home or workplace, either framed or unframed, please go here.